Welcome to the pedagogical site of Nigel Ward, teacher of ICT, integrated science and physics. I have made this site to help my students in their various classes - use the pull-down menu above left to navigate through the many pages here. This site was moved in January 2017 and the science sections were dropped at that time. Please send comments to me at nward2008-at-gmail.com.

Meet Baker, a charming young man who works with us in ICT class as we learn 3D animation using Blender. In this video the voice is my own, shifted up in pitch using Audacity, another free program.

Who needs Hogwarts? We’ve been studying simple magic in ICT class. Here below is Andreas trying out some magic spells. As you can see, magic isn’t easy – it often goes wrong. If you accidentally turn yourself into a frog then DON'T COME CRYING TO ME! This video is available in HD on Vimeo.

Notice the white markers on the table above? I didn't use any markers to make the video at left which is why Marten's cup seems to jump around a bit. Oh, and the sound is not perfect...

Here's Maxime modeling a medical mask which does not exist in the real world. The mask was designed by Marten R using Blender 3D and the same program was used to integrate the virtual mask into the real world video (the white dots on Maxime's face make this process easier).

My students have been experimenting to see whether the Microsoft Kinect (a new type of 3D camera) can be used to capture motion that can then be transferred to the wonderful but hard-to-learn 3D modelling software Blender. Here's Vassilis dancing with his avatar (virtual character). This is essentially the same technique that was used to make the film 'Avatar'. Thanks, Vassilis! To learn more about the free software Blender click here or here. To learn more about the Kinect click here or here. To capture the motion from the Kinect we used Brekel Kinect.

This video showcases 3D models made by students and by myself using the free software Sketchup and Blender. Open the video in HD if you are curious about how it was made.

Want to see some more work by my students? Marten R (class of 2015) used the wonderful free 3D modeling program Blender to make this medical mask . See also this spooky head in glorious interactive 3D. Same models HERE. See Marten presenting a cup he made in the video below and learn how the video was made HERE or see the video of BlenderGuru (Andrew Price) HERE.

REVOLUTION!

My last school, European School Brussels 3, has a special themed project day called 'Topöi' every year. The topic of our 2009 'Topoi' project was 'revolution'. The most revolutionary change in our lives is likely to be the integration of computer technology and the human brain. It is estimated that computers will exceed the capacity of the human brain in about 2029, in less than twenty years. Paralleling the rapid advance in computer science, neuroscience is expected to progress to the extent that in twenty years' time it may be possible to read all our thoughts, and thus all our mind. Combining these advances we can predict that it may be possible to transfer a human mind to a computer. The implications would be enormous - nothing less than immortality for the human mind (could we still call it human?) and vastly-enhanced thinking abilities. Of course this is all highly controversial and clearly has a dark side...

Click HERE to see our work on these revolutionary technologies, including a 13 minute video...

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